Details
BURTON UPON TRENT
04-FEB-201 STAPENHILL ROAD
944/7/39 STAPENHILL
24-MAR-50 St Peter's Church
(Formerly listed as:
STAPENHILL ROAD
STAPENHILL
Church of St Peter)
II
Large town church of 1881 by Evans & Jolly of Nottingham.
MATERIALS: Coursed, rock-faced Derbyshire sandstone, with Bath and Ancaster stone dressings, ashlar limestone to upper stage of tower, slate roofs except for leaded aisle roofs.
PLAN: Aisled nave with asymmetrically placed south-west tower, south porch, chancel with large and tall transeptal south chapel and north organ chamber.
EXTERIOR: The church is mainly in late Perpendicular style. The 3-stage tower has diagonal buttresses, which on the east side rise from corbels (north-east visible within the nave) above lower angle buttresses. The lower stage has a south doorway with continuous moulding dying into the imposts, and 1-light west window. The second stage has 2 tiers of small square-headed windows. The upper stage, by contrast, is tall and impressive, and of limestone ashlar. It has pairs of tall 2-light openings under gables, the spaces above which are filled with pinnacles and blind trefoils, partly obscured by clock faces. The embattled parapet has open tracery, and pinnacles. Five-bay nave and aisles have square-headed windows with ogee-headed lights. The clerestorey has pairs of 2-light windows, aisles have larger 3-light windows. The west wall has 2 pointed 2-light windows either side of a central buttress, and a blocked west doorway is in the north aisle. The porch has an entrance with continuous moulding. In the chapel and organ chamber the north and south walls have tall pairs of 2-light windows with Y-tracery, and small 1-light east windows. The chancel has a 5-light geometrical east window, and has a high stone plinth where the ground level falls sharply.
INTERIOR: Wide and lofty interior. Arcades of 5 bays on the north side, but only 4 bays on the south on account of the tower, have octagonal piers, with attached shafts to the western responds, and arches with linked hoods. North and east tower arches have continuous chamfers. Nave and chancel have hammerbeam roofs, strengthened by steel rods and with panelled and boarded undersides from collar-beam level. Tall and wide arches to chapel and organ chamber have 2 orders of continuous roll mouldings. The organ chamber and chapel have roofs similar to the nave. Shallow monopitch aisle roofs have moulded beams on corbelled brackets. Walls are plastered and the east window has a shafted rere arch. Floors are plain tiles, with raised parquet floors below seating, and black and white marble floor to the sanctuary.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The alabaster font, with round bowl and stem, is early C20. An older font bowl in the north aisle has a plain round bowl on a modern stem. Other fittings are probably of 1881: The pulpit has open, intricate Gothic tracery. Benches have square ends with stencilled numbers. Choir stalls have ends with arm rests and rich blind tracery, with openwork tracery to frontals. Sanctuary details are early C20. They include a communion rail incorporating a band of quatrefoils, and a reredos with blind Gothic panels, richer and taller in the centre. Screens to organ chamber and chapel incorporate panelled dado, intricate tracery to main lights, vine-trail cornice and brattishing. The Lady Chapel reredos is marble, surmounted by trumpet-bearing angels. The east window shows Christ with saints, probably 1881. Other windows are C20. An incised alabaster slab from an altar tomb to William Dethick (d 1497) is in the tower base. On the south wall of the tower is a monument to Susanna Inge (d 1720) with scrolled sides and scrolled pediment. Other memorial tablets are C18-C20.
HISTORY: The medieval church was replaced in 1881 by the present church, which is by Evans and Jolly, architects of Nottingham, largely at the expense of the Clay family and Burton brewing firms. The chancel was refitted in the early C20. A medieval font was in the old church in 1821, but was later removed and discarded, to be rediscovered and reinstated in the present church in 1973.
SOURCES:
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Staffordshire, (1974) 88
VCH Staffordshire IX, 215-18
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
St Peter's Church, Stapenhill Road, Stapenhill, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a well-designed large town church retaining late C19 character and interior detail, with a fine tower that forms a prominent landmark on the eastern side of the River Trent
* It has C15 and C18 monuments of special interest
